Ukraine wants to create a “neutral zone” in Russia’s Kursk region, where Ukrainian forces launched an unprecedented offensive on August 6, aimed at protecting border residents from Russian shelling, a Ukrainian minister said.
“The creation of a buffer zone in the Kursk region is a measure aimed at protecting border communities from the enemy’s daily shelling,” Interior Minister Ihor Klimenko said in a post on the Telegram app.
“The residents of the communities located in the zone of the defense operation have been abandoned by Russia” and are deprived of “even the most basic goods,” he added. According to Klimenko, preparations are underway to provide them with food, drinking water, medicine and other hygiene products.
Almost at the same time, the Deputy Prime Minister Irina Vereshchuk announced the opening of humanitarian corridors in this area from where tens of thousands of civilians fled to escape. “Our military forces plan (…) to open humanitarian corridors for the evacuation of civilians, both to Russia and Ukraine,” he said.
From August 6, Ukrainian forces penetrated into Kursk and occupied territory on the border. This is the largest penetration of a foreign army into Russian territory since World War II.
For its part, the Russian military announces almost daily that Ukrainian infiltration attempts have failed, and Russian President Vladimir Putin has ordered his forces to “drive” the Ukrainians out of Russian territory.
Tens of thousands of civilians from both sides of the border have fled the area due to the fighting.
Ukraine has hit four Russian military airbases in the largest drone strike yet
At the same time, during a night operation, Ukraine carried out the largest long-range military strike with drones against four Russian military airfields, a Ukrainian security source said today.
The strike, which targeted air bases in Voronezh, Kursk, Savasleyka and Borisoglebsk, was aimed at undermining Moscow’s ability to use warplanes for aerial bomb attacks in Ukraine, the source said.
Reuters could not immediately independently verify the claim. Ukraine is still assessing the scale of the damage, the source said.
Russia’s Defense Ministry said earlier that air defenses destroyed 117 drones and four tactical missiles fired by Ukraine in several areas, including Kursk.
The airfield strikes come as Ukrainian troops try to push into Russia’s Kursk region after a surprise operation that saw them make the biggest battlefield gains since 2022.
Since the start of the invasion last week, Russian forces have reduced the number of cluster bomb attacks on border settlements in Ukraine’s southeastern Kharkiv region, the local governor said on Monday.
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